Research purpose: The primary aim of this study is to provide an interpretation of the lived experiences of Maltese ambulance nurses to explore job demands and job resources (antecedents) that might be affecting their engagement at work..
Design/Methodology: An explorative qualitative investigation with a sample of 19 ambulance nurses from two main Maltese healthcare facilities was conducted. The antecedents of work engagement among these employees were investigated by the application of interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Findings: Approximately a third of the sample reported four factors hindering and facilitating antecedents of work engagement that were rarely reported in the context of the ambulance emergency industry. These were “lack of specialisation”, “lack of co-workers’ support”, “lack of feedback” and “work-planning tools”.
Limitations: As the sample was taken from Maltese public and public/private ambulance nurses only, the generalizability of results to emergency employees working in similar contexts (e.g. fire-fighters, police) or other ambulance nurses working in other contexts (e.g. NGOs, private) needs to be established.
Conclusion: The work engagement of ambulance nurses seems to be compromised by these undocumented job demands and job resources.
Practical implications: The research should help and encourage healthcare managers and policy makers to take appropriate steps to promote those antecedents that increase engagement and mitigate the adverse effects of hindering antecedents.
Value/Originality: This research study presents one of the first attempts to integrate the JD-R model in exploring work engagement through the lived experiences of Maltese ambulance nurses.
Key words: Engagement, Antecedents, JDR, Ambulance Nurses, Malta
